hailed again, this time close aboard, and as it seemed, in rage.
Glancing contemptuously to starboard, the lowdah made some negligent
reply, about a cargo of human hair. His indifference appeared so real,
that for a moment Rudolph suspected him: perhaps he had been bought
over, and this meeting arranged. The thought, however, was unjust. The
voices began to drop astern, and to come in louder confusion with
the breeze.

But at this point Flounce, the terrier, spoiled all by whipping up
beside the lowdah, and furiously barking. Hers was no pariah's yelp: she
barked with spirit, in the King's English.

For answer, there came a shout, a sharp report, and a bullet that ripped
through the matting sail. The steersman ducked, but clung bravely to his
paddle. Men tumbled out from the cabin, rifles in hand, to join Rudolph
and the captain.

Astern, dangerously near, they saw the hostile craft, small, but listed
heavily with crowding ruffians, packed so close that their great wicker
hats hung along the gunwale to save room, and shone dim in the obscurity
like golden shields of vikings. A squat, burly fellow, shouting, jammed
the yulow hard to bring her about.

"Save your fire," called Captain Kneebone. "No shots to waste. Sit
tight."

As he spoke, however, an active form bounced up beside the squat man at
the sweep,--a plump, muscular little barefoot woman in blue. She tore
the fellow's hands away, and took command, keeping the boat's nose
pointed up-river, and squalling ferocious orders to all on board.

"The Pretty Lily!" cried Rudolph. This small, nimble, capable creature
could be no one but Mrs. Wu, their friend and gossip of that morning,
long ago....

The squat man gave an angry shout, and turned on her to wrest away the
handle. He failed, at once and for all. With great violence, yet with a
neat economy of motion, the Pretty Lily took one hand from her tiller,
long enough to topple him overboard with a sounding splash.

Her passengers, at so prompt and visual a joke, burst into shrill,
cackling laughter. Yet more shrill, before their mood could alter, the
Pretty Lily scourged them with the tongue of a humorous woman. She held
her course, moreover; the two boats drifted so quickly apart that when
she turned, to fling a comic farewell after the white men, they could no
more than descry her face, alert and comely, and the whiteness of her
teeth. Her laughing cry still rang, the overthrown leader still
floundered in